The invention relates to a web feed printing press and more especially to a web feed gravure press compressing a longitudinal shaft for driving the printing units and with a device for driving at least one web draw roll.
In conventionally designed web feed gravure presses the draw rolls placed between the folder and the printing units are mechanically driven by the longitudinal shaft, the drive train including a transmission with a number of different speeds, which has to be reset for every change in the diameter of the cylinders of the printing unit. Arrangements of this type have become well accepted but they are complex in design. Furthermore, known systems with a mechanical drive for the draw rolls from the longitudinal shaft are noisy in operation. A further fact is that the mechanical drive train with the multispeed transmission makes a large amount of servicing necessary. A particularly serious disadvantage is that the drive train extending from the longitudinal shaft to the draw rolls requires a large amount of space and this impairs access to the printing press. A further point is that such a mechanical drive train only has limited possibilities of modification to suit different applications and, more specifically, it cannot be adapted to the geometry of the draw roll setup.